Toast, Butter And Some Good Old Jelly
by Literaria88
Summary: Just a short one-shot I jotted down when I was bored. Post war, Dramione are the Heads of Hogwarts – and all that jazz. Hermione has a terrible crush on Draco, but keeps it hidden because she feels he'll never return the sentiment... Hmph, fat chance.


"You really hexed her," Malfoy managed to say in between laughs. "Merlin's sweet buns, Granger. You actually turned her into the human version of the backside of a Blast-Ended Skrewt."

"She's a bad influence on you!" quipped Hermione hotly.

"A bad influence? She was practically throwing herself at me until you so rudely interrupted us," he eyed her surreptitiously.

"And that's a good thing?" huffed Hermione, poking hard on his shoulder to which he responded with a malfoyishly dramatic pout and a childish 'Oww!' "Having girls 'throw themselves' at you?"

"As a fine specimen of the male species, I can assure you, such things are always good, Granger. More than good, in fact... Wait, 'better' is the word I'm looking for. I could have, dare I hope, secured my not-so-little Draco down here some good old Felix Felicis action, if you get my drift," scoffed Malfoy as his lips curled into a sultry smirk.

Hermione made a disgusted face at the blond Slytherin walking beside her, "Ugh, look, she has even lost you the very last of your remaining five brain cells."

"You've lost me a few days worth of wonderful no-strings-attached shagging, Granger. That is an even more serious transgression." He sighed dramatically, placing his hand over his heart.

"Oh, please, refrain from your drama just this once, Malfoy," said Hermione as she quickened her pace, catching up with him, and folded her arms– the posture her body assumed whenever she was determined to squash someone with her logic. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you weren't too keen on following up on her offer either, were you? It looked like she was sexually harassing you. I was your knight in shining armour," she gave him a smug, lop-sided grin that had him staring at her like she was his...

Great, you're hallucinating now. Get your shit together, Hermione.

"And what a knight you are, Granger," said Malfoy, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Only, the lady's face looks about as pretty as a frightfully decapitated Flobberworm right now."

"Lady? Hope you don't mean that pretentious hag... Lady. More like evil, perverted witch."

Malfoy merely snorted in response. They were on the seventh floor corridor now, the portrait door had just swung open for them to enter their peaceful haven of reading and talking and joking and bickering until they fell asleep on the armchairs by the happy, warm fire.

"Were you really going to... you know...get off with her?"

Malfoy's brows creased adorably as he drawled, "Get off? What are you, twelve? Don't be such a prude, Granger, woman up and say the word, it's spelled 's-e-x'."

"Fine, were you going to... have sex with the bint?"

"That's more like it... To answer you question... Meh... I had been considering it. I mean, she was adequate, but not quite up to my standards, obviously."

"Obviously," Hermione huffed. "So she's just an object to you, is that it?"

"Well, I was an object to her, so tit for tat, don't you think?" He smirked at himself, commending himself on his punny comeback.

Hermione glared at him as she shoved him aside and stormed past the portrait hole and waved her wand to light the fire in the hearth. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Malfoy..."

She had caught a very pesky Ravenclaw trying to hit on Malfoy even though he had made it quite clear that he wasn't into her. Then, as if she hadn't crossed enough boundaries, the stupid girl had the nerve to grab him by the collar and the audacity to kiss him forcefully on the lips. That had been the last straw for his best friend, Hermione. The rest was history.

Head girl and Head boy were now back in their shared common room, after dropping the poor Ravenclaw at the infirmary. Madame Pomfrey was horrified at the state of the girl's puffy earlobes and her abnormally large cheeks.

"I see what has provoked you so. You're jealous."

Hermione laughed shrilly, more out of nervousness than denial.

"In your dreams, Drakie-poo."

"Ahh, finally, the much anticipated trip to my favourite river in Egypt. Admit it, Granger, you find me irresistibly handsome and tempting. And you couldn't bear it when I showed someone else the attention I should have, instead, shown you."

"We both know that's not true."

"Oooh, little 'Ermynee Gwangee is jelly!" Malfoy did a fairly accurate impression of Peeves as she glowered at him.

"Sod off, Malfoy."

"Right here?"

"You're disgusting, d'you know that?"

Letting his most arrogant smirk take over his luscious lips(Ugh, FOCUS, 'Mione!), Malfoy walked closer and closer until their noses were almost touching. She could make out a small sparkle in the smooth silver of his eyes, courtesy to the roaring fire nearby.

"Would you like some toast and butter to go with all that jelly, Granger?" He drawled, completely ignoring her insult, his lips looking dangerously delectable, the low, dulcet tone of his soothing voice ringing bells of alarm in her mind's ear. "You look adorable when you're flustered," he muttered under his breath.

"I – I'm not... Malf–"

He brought up a finger and lifted her chin upwards so that they were eye to eye. Hermione desperately hoped that he wouldn't hear her heart hammering wildly in her chest.

Oh, Merlin, she needed to get ahold of her stupid crush.

He was just teasing her, trying to irk her, expecting her to take his hands away from her face and chide him for being a prick for not respecting her personal space. But she remained steady although every cell and nerve in her body had stopped working.

"Draco..." She began warily.

"Shhh," he whispered against her lips, his expression solemn as he tilted his head, his alluring eyes fluttering shut.

Oh, to hell with it all.

But the logical part of her tried to assess the situation in vain. "Wh –"

He silenced her by leaning even closer and letting his lips graze hers ever so lightly, his lips curling upwards just a little at her gasp of surprise, but the moment was ruined within one goddamned second as he grinned mischievously and resorted to tickling her sides.

"MALFOY! Oh – Ha ha-aha! OH, STOP! Merlin – ha ha - Oh, Gods! Stop, Draco, please!"

She shoved his hands off her and fell onto the couch, giggling wildly, clutching at her aching sides, her untamable brown curls a frizzy mess from their three hour long walk in the freezing Hogsmeade weather.

"Honestly," he said, laughing heartily, "You're so easy to trick."

Hermione's heart stopped as the words fell out of his mouth.

Well, what had she even expected? That it was genuine? Hell yeah she had.

Her gut twisted with disappointment and pain as he chuckled again and sat beside her.

He continued to speak in a graver and lower tone, but her ears weren't registering anything anymore. Now, don't get her wrong, she knew he was used to teasing her from time to time, and so was she, yet she couldn't help but feel what he had said was a bit insensitive.

Malfoy was talking away about something enthusiastically, oblivious to the very real fact that her insides were squirming with sadness and frustration. But it wasn't completely his fault either. She knew her foolish heart was damned to eternal destruction that wretched but beautiful moment three weeks ago when he had forced her to quit skulking because of her fight with Ron (who's just a friend, let's get that straight), and ordered her to "get her prim and proper arse up" from her favourite squishy armchair (ever the alliteration lover he was, that annoying ferret, he could easily pass off as Peeves' twin brother), taken her hand in his, lacing his fingers through hers and with a flick of his wand, set a haunting melody echo off the secluded walls of their common room, led her in a carefully practised and well mastered waltz, gazed at her as if to tell her that no matter what happened, he would always be there as a shoulder for her to cry on (that too, a particularly irresistible one – his words, not hers), promised her that everything was going to be OK, and then, what she felt was the icing on the cake, locked his silver eyes with her brown ones and let a rare smile grace his lips. And then, as if nothing had happened, they had fallen into an intellectually stimulating debate – a discussion, Hermione had corrected him.

In a nutshell, Draco Malfoy had taught her that there was a fine line between love and hate. And now, she really heard the sound of her heart breaking. No matter how much she wanted to be with him, it would never happen. It could never happen. He was Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince, Pure-blood ferret, Malfoy heir. They were never meant to be. He would never feel that way about her. And now she was hurt and angry at herself for allowing him to come strutting in, invading her heart, soul and mind forever.

But would she let him know that this was hurting her? This joking and teasing, as if they were only friends?

Just friends, nothing more.

She half whispered,"No."That would mean telling him she actually had feelings for –

"Granger, are you feeling well?" His tone was a tad shaky.

Oh, she was definitely feeling things, alright.

"Yeah... "

He said something she didn't bother to listen to. Something she should have listened to. Something she had wanted to hear from him for a long time. But, being the anxious wreck that she was, she was dwelling on her bruised heart.

No, Hermione, you won't tell him. It'll only embarrass you and probably ruin your friendship.

Hermione shook her head slightly.

"What?" asked Malfoy, all the color draining from his face.

"Hmm?" She said, half smiling, forcing herself to act casual when her mind was racing. She even tried to laugh. Unfortunately, it came out as an overly sarcastic chortle. She mentally chided herself.

Shit. Shouldn't have done that.

There was an unfamiliar frown etched across Malfoy's perfect, dreamy, porcelain face.

Dammit, stop this, Hermione, it's useless.

Maybe it was because of the Butterbeer, or maybe there really was a Nargle infestation in the Heads' dorm, but she thought she saw, for one fleeting second, a rare expression in Malfoy's eyes.

Was he...hurt?

He sighed, looking away, as if his pride had been badly hurt, his otherwise pale cheeks tinted a light pink.Wait, what?

"Er... I was only..." he said quietly.

The air around them had suddenly become tense and awkward, lacking all of its former warmth that the two had managed to create after they had shaken their hands as part of the Civility Pact two months ago. And now they had become the best of friends. Well, he merely considered her a close friend. Hermione, however, had hopelessly and irreversibly crossed that line and set some Fiendfyre to it inside her mind.

Malfoy was looking anywhere but at her now.

What the hell was happening?

"I... Er... Just... I was only joking."

What? What exactly was he talking about? Hadn't he been laughing his pale ferret-y arse off only a few moments ago?

She opened her mouth to ask him exactly that only to be cut off with a dismissive "Forget I asked."

Just _what_ had he asked?

She had been too busy pining over him to actually pay heed to his words.

Living up to his family name was as important to him as keeping his hair perfectly tousled at all times was, so Malfoy instantly put on his usual arrogant-arse Malfoy look. But that twinge of vulnerability he had displayed earlier hadn't gone unnoticed by her. She just couldn't quite place her wand on it.

"Good night, Granger," said Malfoy, as he stood up from the couch and briskly made his way across the room towards his dormitory.

What was that all about?

But she found what exactly that had been all about the next evening as she entered Slughorn's crowded office and spotted a subdued Malfoy nursing an empty goblet in his hand, standing by a lonely corner, gazing out into the depths of the Black Lake.

Neither of the two had a date for ol' Sluggie's Christmas party – Hermione, because she never bothered to find one and knowing, in her heart, that she could never get the exact person she needed to attend it with. And Malfoy, because he had been rejected by the only person he had wanted to go with.

He looked up from his drink and stared at her, and she stared back just as intently – and they reached a silent understanding. She would have slapped herself senseless on the spot for being a stupid witch if it weren't for the silver haired handsome Slytherin looking at her like she was the only girl in the world.

Well, on the bright side, Hermione now knew he wouldn't mind a bit if she ran up to him and threw her hands around his neck and officially snogged the living daylights out of his pretty, arrogant, sassy, beautiful lips.

That's a lot of adjectives, 'Mione.

It will suffice to say that she proceeded to do just that. And he heartily obliged, if you were wondering.

~fin~


End file.
